NICE PEOPLE

My descendants

Yes, there are good people in this world.  The condo next to mine here in Borrego Springs, CA, is owned by an elderly couple who themselves could hardly be nicer.  (Elderly?  When an 83-year-old uses that word, it means something.) Currently their son, who I will call Jack, because that’s his name, is living with them.  Jack recently lost his wife to a lingering rare disease that is crueler even than  ovarian cancer, if that is possible.   He is recently retired and probably in his mid-sixties.  He plays a lot of golf.  Anyway…

I happened to mention to Jack that my garbage disposal unit was on the fritz and that I was researching the possibility of there being a qualified repair man in town.  (Believe me, in Borrego Springs this is not a given.)  He insisted on looking at it, and immediately deduced that the problem resided in the electrical system.  Over the next three days, including a trip to the nearest hardware store (7 miles; my place is really in the sticks), he worked vigorously for maybe three hours – and, by God, fixed the thing!

I am the son of a practical, highly skilled country boy turned hardware/lumber merchant.  Dad tried hard to teach me practical, useful things, but he failed.  I could no more have fixed that electrical problem than I could have excised a brain tumor.  But Jack did it, smiling and chatting all the while.  I offered to pay him back by giving him a lecture on plate tectonics, but he politely declined.

Thanks, Jack.  We need more like you.